After two hours of casting "sleep" on Ankhegs, Imoen finally regains her thieving abilities

Ballad

(As a serious point of discussion, does anyone else feel compelled to grind through the first few levels? For me, gameplay only becomes fun around level 5 or so. Before that, it's either Carebear valley or Reload city.)

ilduderino

Can’t remember the last time I didn’t start a playthough with a trip to basilisk valley followed by a long nap in angkeg central ?

jsaving

Depends on how you play the game, I think. For sure, farming ankhegs lets you bypass boring levels as well as the awkward period in BG1 where a bit of bad luck can do you in. But ankheg-farming also makes you much stronger than the devs intended for the remainder of the game, enabling you to breeze through the main storyline. So you probably want to raise the difficulty setting when going this route (unless you just like a more laid-back run-through, in which case having a stronger than expected character works just fine).

Aaezil

Half the fun of the game is struggling through the first few levels with no gold gear or xp IMO.

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masteraleph

Aaezil wrote: »

Half the fun of the game is struggling through the first few levels with no gold gear or xp IMO.

Ugh- that’s exactly why I prefer BG2 to the original- no slogging through wilderness areas underleveled and underequipped.

Aaezil

Slog or a challenge i suppose it depends on your state of mind

Mantis37

If you think that starting at a higher level is more appropriate then you could just give yourself enough xp to start at 3rd level. Then, if you use SCS, you could also use the level adder mod:

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/32334/level-adder-v0-5/p1

...to add 2 levels to every other npc in the game as well so the bandits you meet will still be a challenge, and the final battle will be even more of a challenge! Don't use it to reduce levels if you don't want to fight level 255 bandits .